“Polly is fine,” Lockhart says gravely. “Darren is recovering from a bug he brought back from play group, and we’re watching in case Nicky comes down with it too—”
They make small talk for a few minutes as Persephone listens, nodding. To an ill-informed observer she could be a thirty-year-old ballet dancer who has married a man with serious money, a man of the very highest rank—seats in the country and the House of Lords, on a first-name basis with minor royalty, reserved place at Eton for the firstborn male issue, that sort of thing. And Lockhart might simply be a family friend, a senior civil servant of the old school, filling her in on the gossip.
Of course, appearances are deceptive: their official relationship is that of a controller and the intelligence officer they direct. But they keep up appearances in semi-private, to ingrain the habit, lest their paths should meet in public.
After a while, Lockhart runs out of pleasantries to spin around his family life. “But enough of that,” he signals. “I’m wasting your time.”
“Oh, hardly.” She half-smiles, then reaches for a device resembling a TV remote control. “All right, we can talk now. Within the usual limits.” A thin mosquito-whine from the windows behind her hints at the presence of transducers in the frames, designed to defeat laser mikes or other snooping devices.
“Good.” Lockhart pulls a notepad and pen from his jacket pocket. “Did you have anything to add to the agenda…?”
“Not at this time.” She pauses. “Okay. The LUDWIG NIGHT outcome—that’s positive, as per my report, although it was closer than I’m happy about. I take it the asset has been returned to inventory?”
“Yes.” Lockhart nods. “The valuation committee have been asked to report on it but I don’t think there’s going to be any problem authorizing full payment of all your expenses. A job well done, after all.”
“Good.” She watches while Lockhart flips the page.
“Next item. There’s a candidate from within the organization—”
“Within the organization?” She leans forward, suddenly attentive.
“Yes,” says Lockhart. “He’s been tapped for advancement on the basis of his track record in general operations, but he really needs a spin around the block and an evaluation by…well, someone like yourself. I gather Mahogany Row want to know if he’s got the right stuff. So he’s been assigned to me, and I was thinking, if you don’t object, of assigning him to you as liaison on the next suitable excursion?”
“You want me to test-drive your new assistant?”
“Yes, more or less. I don’t think you’ll find him a spare wheel, I hasten to add, although first appearances can be deceptive: he’s a poor fit within the regular civil service framework, too prone to picking his own targets and going after them unilaterally—but he gets results. So the promotion board thought it might be worth trying him out on a more, ah, independent command, as it were.”
“Really? Well, hmm. If you could send me his HR file, that would help me make my mind up. But we can always use a bit of free-thinking in this line of work. If you want to saddle me with a field liaison officer, it’d be best if you pick one who doesn’t expect me to file reports every sixty minutes.”
“Noted.” Lockhart pauses to jot down her request. “I’ll have it seen to later today.” He folds his notepad and slides it away.
“Are we done, then?” she asks.
“Mostly. There’s another job I’d like to talk to you about, but not here. It’s urgent, I’m afraid.”
“Really?” She looks at him sharply. “Do you have a tight schedule?”
“Yes; it’s a rush job and we need to get the ball rolling by close of business today. Most hush-hush.”
“I see. Well, depending on how long it takes…I’ve been summoned for jury service next month, did I say? Terrible nuisance. Perhaps we should continue in the studio?”
“Of course.” Lockhart follows her out into the hall. “And I shouldn’t worry about the jury duty; these things have a habit of falling through cracks. Unlike other types of public service I could mention.”
Persephone walks back into the house, past the broad staircase and the dining room and kitchen, into a narrower, stone-flagged passage obviously designed for servants’ use. She opens a narrow wooden door: there is a spiral staircase, ascending into brightness.
At ground level the house appears to be the residence of a society lady: afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason’s, dinner parties for Ruperts and Jocastas, season tickets to Glyndebourne. But as he climbs the staircase the illusion falls away. And as ever, Lockhart can’t quite shake the feeling that he’s entering the wicked witch’s tower.
They ascend a long way—almost fifty steps, clearly passing through the first and second floors of the house. There are no exits below the top, but daylight bulbs behind tall frosted glass panes like arrow-slit windows provide illumination.
Lockhart has seen external photographs of the house, and the floor plans on file with the council planning department, and he knows there’s no spiral staircase from the former pantry to the attic according to the official deeds. Nor would a casual intruder even be able to see the entrance to the stairwell. Persephone Hazard is not the kind to skimp on security.
The staircase ends at another door. Persephone waits for him at the top, looking as cool and collected as ever; Lockhart is breathing more heavily than he likes to admit. “Come on in,” she says, and turns the handle. “You haven’t been up here recently, have you? I’ve made some changes.”
The space on the top floor is open plan, and huge. It appears that the attic spaces of the entire row of town houses have been combined into one enormous room, rafters boarded over with a sprung floor, roof beams replaced in situ with steel girders to provide an unobstructed space fifty meters long and ten meters deep. There’s a clear space at one end big enough for a dance floor or a dojo; the rest is broken up by movable partitions. “Welcome to my workshop. It’s why I finished buying up the entire row of houses—just so I could build this,” Persephone explains, a note of quiet pride in her voice. “I rent out the other units, so I can vet my neighbors for security.”
Lockhart swallows. “Very impressive,” he says. Previously he’s only seen the interior of the town house she lives in. She doesn’t invite social callers up here, as a rule, and he can see why.
There is a metal ring in the middle of the eight meter by eight meter square of open flooring at the far end of the room. Cables connect it to a pair of nineteen-inch racks that would not be out of place in a server room. Tool cabinets and other equipment, including a pair of backup generators, are positioned around it.
She walks towards him until they are standing nose to nose. “So, Gerry. What really brought you here today?”
“I like to get out of the office from time to time.” He nods at the huge summoning grid at the far side of the room. “Is that in proper working order? The new job really does require containment rather than just a sweep for bugs.”
Persephone stares at him for a moment, then turns and walks towards the grid. Lockhart hurries to catch up with her—she’s a tall woman, and she moves fast. “This is a class six grid,” she explains over her shoulder. “Kimpel-Ziff deflectors and four different safety interlocks. The control module”—she points at the first equipment rack, which is full of shiny server blades—“is three-way redundant and has two separate power supplies, two UPSs, and two different generators. Just in case. It also has a secondary containment grid around the outside, just in case. Which is to say that it is as secure as anything your organization could provide. So the answer to your question is yes, it’s in proper working order.” She stares at Lockhart, nostrils flaring. “Will that do?”